One day, our grunged-up pictures will be discovered by someone with layers of additional /real/ grunge on them (assuming someone still prints these). They'll make the effort to "restore" them only to find that they have a layer of grunge baked into them from the start.

James, I like the shot and really like the other 3 you've posted recently, it just looked overdone to me. I fight that all the time with my cars and occasionally my architecture, when is it time to stop the imaging? Actually, the idea is to not have it apparent at all but because so often we shoot one part here, one part there, the time spent making it look right is considerable and even then there are many times the image ends up ever so slightly off. There are many reasons for this but I think the primary reason is that our clients don't want to spend the money to do it correctly (which is time consuming). I have been reviewing work of mine from when I shot film and even though it still was retouched the effort to make the image perfect right out of the camera was considerable and it shows. There are a few examples in the Pro Discussion of what I'm talking about.

"Would have loved to shot a Peter Lindberg type of gig with old Maxwells, black and white, dusty backgrounds, huge crews, but the world doesn't allow much of this anymore. --- BC"

That's an interesting statement.

I've seen a lot of P.L. fashion work, and also his Pirelli(s) (I think he did two: one desert and one movie lot?) and your comment raises a sense of disbelief in my mind. How on Earth does it take a big budget and crew to do what he's known for doing, in the way you described? I've done a lot of location fashion in my career, in many different countries, and I always travelled very light: at the most, apart from the model(s) my wife came along (much as does yours) and helped out in all the different ways a person can. Being alone was the single greatest advantage that I thought that I had: I was left to get along with it and make the best of what I'd been given to shoot. Rarely, I had a client along too - very rarely.

My wonder is this: why should shooting basic, which is what the style tries to emulate, be anything but what it is at face value? If you have the models, the clothes, where's the problem? It seems to me that the key to these sorts of shoot are to be found in access to the interesting locations. Those deserted factories are everywhere in the industrialised world; the snag is having someone let you in to do your thing. I really believe that photography has become a bloated experience that appears to have gathered unto itself an overweight production system about which many complain but few appear to do anything about to reduce. Does the size of crew bear some imaginary relationship to status or ability in client minds? I only ask because I've been out of it for a helluva long time now, and it strikes me as pretty much insane.

P.L's work (in that particular style you referred to) looks simple and can be done simply. Why should it be any more expensive than any other location shoot?

Note: I'm not referring here to you own shoot, by the way, but to the concept of simplicity having to be super-expensive relative to anything else.

"Would have loved to shot a Peter Lindberg type of gig with old Maxwells, black and white, dusty backgrounds, huge crews, but the world doesn't allow much of this anymore. --- BC"

That's an interesting statement.

I've seen a lot of P.L. fashion work, and also his Pirelli(s) (I think he did two: one desert and one movie lot?) and your comment raises a sense of disbelief in my mind. How on Earth does it take a big budget and crew to do what he's known for doing, in the way you described? I've done a lot of location fashion in my career, in many different countries, and I always travelled very light: at the most, apart from the model(s) my wife came along (much as does yours) and helped out in all the different ways a person can. Being alone was the single greatest advantage that I thought that I had: I was left to get along with it and make the best of what I'd been given to shoot. Rarely, I had a client along too - very rarely.

My wonder is this: why should shooting basic, which is what the style tries to emulate, be anything but what it is at face value? If you have the models, the clothes, where's the problem? It seems to me that the key to these sorts of shoot are to be found in access to the interesting locations. Those deserted factories are everywhere in the industrialised world; the snag is having someone let you in to do your thing. I really believe that photography has become a bloated experience that appears to have gathered unto itself an overweight production system about which many complain but few appear to do anything about to reduce. Does the size of crew bear some imaginary relationship to status or ability in client minds? I only ask because I've been out of it for a helluva long time now, and it strikes me as pretty much insane.

P.L's work (in that particular style you referred to) looks simple and can be done simply. Why should it be any more expensive than any other location shoot?

Note: I'm not referring here to you own shoot, by the way, but to the concept of simplicity having to be super-expensive relative to anything else.

Rob C

I hate taking this section of the thread off topic, but maybe that's just the way it goes.

You may not have had client's on set but PL did. Plus knowing celebs, about a million directives thrown at his producer. Ever deal with a star's agent, manager, personal assistant? That hair and makeup person you would hire for ___fill in the blanks___ will triple because they usually want their special person flown in at their special person's rate.Look at that IWC Schaffhausen watch spread with Kevin Spacey and Kate Blanchett. Those two are expensive and powerful. Every prop from cars, to boats, to vintage cameras have to be sourced, found and placed. Then add the catering for the talent and for that type of talent is about double the day unless they're normal folk and most stars are not normal folk.

Rob, you've shot with models on location, done it well, had a lot of latitude, but when you get that level of involvement from that many people, managers, agents, just the wardrobe truck is probably larger than 90% off any lighting truck in Hollywood.

The good news is having that talent to toss the names out gets you a lot of free wardrobe, but it takes a a lot of pressers and seamstress to get it ready.

I might be wrong, I wasn't there, but I can tell you what nearly everything in this business costs and that watch project he shot costs a bunch, or his producer pulled some amazingly good favors.

All that talent has brands to protect and the retouching, regardless of what was really paid and regardless of how real it looks at retail value is higher than 99.99999% of any shoot shown on this forum.

The only thing that would lower the price is if it was a movie set and he was allowed a day or so just to use anything they had on set and shoot what he wanted, but advertising rarely works that way.

I'm not excusing the shoot I did, I like it and I have almost free run of the Sony Lot due to a great business relationship, but that doesn't allow me to go onto any sound stage and start shooting, or grab someone's arriflex and use it as a prop.

Everything we shoot we have to bring in. Hell the errors and omissions insurance and liability riders, city permits (yes you sometimes have to cut permits in culver city even on a movie lot) on our shoot can be as much as a small crew.

This is now a very expensive business.

IMO

P.S. One note, Europe usually is a lot easier and cheaper to shoot this style of project than America. People will let yo use a restaurant without 22 waivers and a letter from the marketing department.

Police don't hassel you on every corner like in the U.S. and there is usually a respect for the art that I don't see in L.A.

I appreciate what you say, BC, but it's not about what I'm questioning, which is why those simple, old-factory interior shoots have to be expensive beyond the model and photographer fees. I don't think Lindbergh only shoots actresses and as far as I know, neither Vogue nor Harper's pays anybody much for taking part, but see it as their helping the models/snappers get exposure for commercial work as spin-off from the editorial. And it's editorial work that I think of when I think of Lindbergh's factory shoots. Long ago, but what I got from fashion editorial during the 70s wasn't worth the shooting, but I didn't know that at the time.

Anyway, I guess it's all academic because nothing's going to change by intent, only by happenstance.

I hate taking this section of the thread off topic, but maybe that's just the way it goes.

You may not have had client's on set but PL did. Plus knowing celebs, about a million directives thrown at his producer. Ever deal with a star's agent, manager, personal assistant? That hair and makeup person you would hire for ___fill in the blanks___ will triple because they usually want their special person flown in at their special person's rate.Look at that IWC Schaffhausen watch spread with Kevin Spacey and Kate Blanchett. Those two are expensive and powerful. Every prop from cars, to boats, to vintage cameras have to be sourced, found and placed. Then add the catering for the talent and for that type of talent is about double the day unless they're normal folk and most stars are not normal folk.

Rob, you've shot with models on location, done it well, had a lot of latitude, but when you get that level of involvement from that many people, managers, agents, just the wardrobe truck is probably larger than 90% off any lighting truck in Hollywood.

The good news is having that talent to toss the names out gets you a lot of free wardrobe, but it takes a a lot of pressers and seamstress to get it ready.

I might be wrong, I wasn't there, but I can tell you what nearly everything in this business costs and that watch project he shot costs a bunch, or his producer pulled some amazingly good favors.

All that talent has brands to protect and the retouching, regardless of what was really paid and regardless of how real it looks at retail value is higher than 99.99999% of any shoot shown on this forum.

The only thing that would lower the price is if it was a movie set and he was allowed a day or so just to use anything they had on set and shoot what he wanted, but advertising rarely works that way.

I'm not excusing the shoot I did, I like it and I have almost free run of the Sony Lot due to a great business relationship, but that doesn't allow me to go onto any sound stage and start shooting, or grab someone's arriflex and use it as a prop.

Everything we shoot we have to bring in. Hell the errors and omissions insurance and liability riders, city permits (yes you sometimes have to cut permits in culver city even on a movie lot) on our shoot can be as much as a small crew.

This is now a very expensive business.

IMO

P.S. One note, Europe usually is a lot easier and cheaper to shoot this style of project than America. People will let yo use a restaurant without 22 waivers and a letter from the marketing department.

Police don't hassel you on every corner like in the U.S. and there is usually a respect for the art that I don't see in L.A.

It is interesting how our psyche works, how we respond to images showing deterioration and decay that implies passage of time and finality, triggering the course of memories, either your own or of prior generations.When we are faced with them, it does not come to mind to count pixels and split hairs, we observe image as a whole and appreciate it by likely using the right side of our brain:)

It is interesting how our psyche works, how we respond to images showing deterioration and decay that implies passage of time and finality, triggering the course of memories, either your own or of prior generations.When we are faced with them, it does not come to mind to count pixels and split hairs, we observe image as a whole and appreciate it by likely using the right side of our brain:)

That's a good observation, Michael.

I know without doubt that it works for me, because my all-time favourite Pirelli calendar is the Sarah Moon '72 one, shot in a chateau (Malmaison) outside Paris, with women wearing old-fashioned clothes, employing lots of grain and the generally wonderful mood of days long gone

It's not by accident that so much interesting stuff comes from around the Art Deco period... unbridled love of design and senstivity; not a hint of the horrors of forced gender equality (in the sense of there being but a single sex, bar the mechanical bits) and the wilful blindness to the differences that make the world work.

Thank God I grew up in an age when people were able to appreciate the entirely different mental and natural assets and proclivities rather than metaphorically (and ultimately futilely) attempt to make boys play with dolls and girls with guns and, worse, footballs.

Yes, that's a most engaging picture and the girl enters into the spirit of the thing perfectly. Note the wonderful lack of plastic epidermis.

Calendar shoot in Singapore for lager client; kept 'product' as small as diplomatically possible... it was visible on the page. I never felt that beer and girls look right together; it goes against my instincts. I always associate beer/lager with 'lads' and football. I think girls should sip G&Ts or nurse a Campari soda.